McLaren's Selection of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button Was the Right Decision
In the end, the wait was worth it. On Thursday morning, McLaren ended months of speculation over their driver line-up, announcing Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button as their race drivers for 2015. Kevin Magnussen, who was impressive, but not spectacular in his rookie campaign, will take a step back, becoming the team's test and reserve driver.
Alonso is one of the top drivers in the world, and it was a coup for McLaren to sign him away from Ferrari. He will now headline the return of Honda as McLaren's engine supplier starting next year.
But Alonso's arrival in Woking was a mere formality—an open secret in the paddock since Sebastian Vettel kicked off the game of musical race seats at the Japanese Grand Prix by confirming he was leaving Red Bull. The real drama surrounded who McLaren would choose to partner the Spaniard: Button, the experienced champion, or Magnussen, the budding star.
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As much as it may pain Danish fans to admit it, McLaren made the correct choice. Alonso and Button give the team the best chance to be successful right away.
Aside from his 266 grand prix starts, 15 victories and the 2009 world championship, Button also has significant experience working with Honda. He drove Honda-powered cars from 2003, when he joined Jacques Villeneuve at BAR, through 2008, when the Japanese company left the sport. With all that experience, he should be able to provide better input for the development of the new car than Magnussen can.
Not only that, but the 34-year-old Brit significantly out-performed his rookie team-mate on the track in 2014. In races they both finished, Magnussen crossed the line ahead of Button just three times and Button scored 126 points to Magnussen's 55.
Those results were not unexpected, given the vast gap in experience between the two men—Magnussen was seven years old when Button made his F1 debut—but they do confirm what McLaren obviously felt at the end of 2013: that Magnussen still needed some seasoning before joining the big club.
Remember, then-team principal Martin Whitmarsh told the official F1 website last November that Magnussen was only given the drive at McLaren when a deal for him to race with another team fell through at the last minute.
Meanwhile, the domino effect of Alonso's signing continued past Magnussen, as well. Stoffel Vandoorne, the team's 2014 reserve driver, has been bumped from that gig in favour of the Dane.
That move shows that McLaren have not lost confidence in Magnussen. Rather, the opportunity to pair two world champions together, while welcoming Honda back to the sport, was too good to pass up.
Magnussen may also have been hurt by a lack of funding. McLaren went the entire 2014 season without a title sponsor and two weeks before the driver announcement, longtime F1 journalist Joe Saward reported on his blog that McLaren CEO Ron Dennis was in Denmark, trying to drum up sponsorship.
Lego, one of Denmark's highest-profile companies, declined, with CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp telling DR News (via The Copenhagen Post), "the sponsorship did not fit Lego's brand." If other Danish companies felt likewise, that may have played a role in McLaren's decision.
It could be argued that Magnussen's development will be hurt by going back to a testing role for a year, but it has been done successfully in the past. In fact, Alonso raced a full season at Minardi in 2001, then spent a year as Renault's test driver before taking Button's race seat in 2003. Two years later, he was world champion.
"McLaren’s policy has always been to assemble the strongest line-up possible, and in Fernando and Jenson I firmly believe that is exactly what we have," Dennis said, per the team's press release.
"I want to thank and pay tribute to Kevin, who has done a great job this season and will continue to be an integral part of our team," he went on. "He will be our test, reserve and third driver, and remains an excellent prospect for the future."
Getting back to the 2015 race drivers, Alonso has something to prove, having missed the drivers' championship by one point during his previous stint at McLaren, in 2007. He then left the team in a cloud of controversy related to the Spygate scandal, but should now be rejuvenated following five largely disappointing years with Ferrari
Alonso will also push Button, who has spent two seasons with young team-mates since Lewis Hamilton left. Meanwhile, this will be the Spaniard's second straight year with a world champion team-mate. His highly anticipated battle with Kimi Raikkonen in 2014 never panned out, as the Finn could not get comfortable with the new cars. Button did not have that problem—his car just wasn't very good.
In 2015, both McLaren drivers will be essentially starting from scratch, as the team redesigns its car to complement the new Honda power unit. There are question marks not only around the engine, but also the chassis. After all, McLaren had the best engine in 2014, but they could not exploit its potential.
"Hopefully we can get everything right from the first race, but you never know," Alonso told the official F1 website. "The 2014 cars showed us how complex this F1 is. But we will see. I think a reasonable level of competitiveness will be to fight for podiums, hopefully to win races in 2015—that will be a good sign for our future."
No one will really know how competitive the car is, though, until at least preseason testing, if not the first race. Right now, the one place where there are no question marks is behind the wheel. Alonso and Button will get the most out of whatever package they are given, proving that they are the right men to lead McLaren's quest to recapture lost glory.
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